


Heart of Ice

by Ezekiel Grayson (MordeshLibertine)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dark Knight Ysayle is Real, Fix It Fic, Heavensward MSQ Spoilers, Minor Stormblood and Shadowbringers Spoilers, Ysayle Dangoulain Deserved Better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MordeshLibertine/pseuds/Ezekiel%20Grayson
Summary: Ysayle Dangoulain resigned herself to her fate when she leapt from the dragon’s back in the skies of Azys Lla, but Shiva did not.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Heart of Ice

—

With one final blast of the Garleans’ cannon, not even the power of her faith could shield her.

And so she fell.

Pain coursed down every inch of her bones, for not even the power of (Not-)Shiva cloaked her completely from the onslaught of those dread weapons.

And yet, as her shattered body fell, her soul, finally, felt at peace.

She had lived a misguided life.

So convinced of her righteousness, she had bought so much destruction.

So convinced of her faithfulness, she had bought forth a lie and called it truth.

But now, she had given the Scions the time they needed. They would pursue Thordan, bring him justice, and finally, perhaps, establish the peace she should have worked for all along.

With that knowledge, that peace, she closed her eyes, content to embrace whatever came next.

“No.”

The word rang through her head, a clarion call. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked around for the source of the voice speaking that single word, soft but full of conviction, but still she fell, soundless and alone, through the endless skies.

“You are my prophetess, my creator. I will not let it end like this.”

This… was the voice of her Shiva?

“How are you still with me?”

“I saved my power. Enough to save you. I could not defeat that airship, but I could save you.”

“But… Why? How? You should have no identity apart from me, you were never the true Shiva, only A strange, twisted part of me, convinced of my righteousness!”

“Thou art me and I am thee,” the voice answered in agreement, “But your faith has given me form. I will not let your light fail.”

“It has failed,” Ysayle answered, serene, but with a small edge of bitterness underneath, “I cannot survive this fall. If the winds do not suffocate me, or the cold freeze the life from me, I shall die when the ground rises up to meet me. It is the end I deserve. I have finished my task. The Warrior of Light will carry on, better than I ever could.”

“Have faith, my lady,” Shiva answered. Whether faith in her power to save her, faith in her own self, she did not elaborate, but the air grew even chiller, and as Ysayle opened her eyes once more, she found a blizzard whipping around her.

The cold pierced her heart, but it dulled the pain of broken bones. The winds ceased, and she fell into darkness.

And in the lower reaches of Dravania, deep among a forest of trees pierced through by crystals of ice-aspected aether, one crystal, larger than the rest, perfectly formed and faceted, carried on a blizzard wind, touched down gently to earth.

There, encased and suspended inside it, hung an Elezen Woman, sleeping deeply, battered and bruised.

But maybe, just maybe, still alive.

—

She slept there, as her primal guardian, weak but present, tended her wounds, slowly mended soul and body.

She dreamt only in fits and starts.

Once, she rode upon Hraesvelgr's back once more, free, unburdened, to touch the clouds.

Another time, she felt the pull of her friend, her only friend, begging her help to save that damnable dragoon. But whatever differences she had with Estinien, she loved the Warrior of Light all the same, and so, she came, somehow travelling forth free of the crystal for a single moment, and dispelled the rancor of Nidhogg. She could not speak, only gaze longingly at her comrades one last time, before darkness swallowed her again.

She saw a cleansing flame sweep across the earth, from a twisted dragon, not of the Horde, but of belief and anger and aether, with a breath to melt steel. She saw armies marching across desert battlefields, upon high grass steppes.

She saw city streets lined with strange architecture, choked with debris as soldiers marched, then scattered.

She found no rhyme or reason to these visions, and yet they came.

Then, one final vision. The tall crystal tower that she had sometimes seen rising over the mountains from the neighboring lands of Mor Dhona.

A voice cried then, “Throw Wide The Gates!”

A tug not at her body, but her soul, a deep, keening longness, to go… somewhere? Do something? To Travel, to move.

But the crystal held her fast.

The yearning felt as if it would split her in twain anew, to wrack her body with heaving sobs, mourning for adventures would never know, friendships that should have been strengthened, tempered, forged. But instead, the crystal held her fast. Once again, Darkness fell over her like a veil again, and she knew no more.

—

Bahamut’s great Calamity had sundered the seasons in the north of Eorzea, but nonetheless, in Dravania at least, a spring of a sort still existed, and it still came. Thus it was, that as spring sprung forth, the crystal began to melt, at first slightly, then at once. As it melted, it gently lowered its precious cargo to the ground - the sleeping woman.

When it had melted completely, the last of its aether sparkling in the morning breeze, it left behind two other things as well: A massive sword, whose blade seemed to be fashioned of purest ice even as it refused to melt in the warm spring sun, and a small blue crystal, small enough to be easily held in the palm of one’s hand, shaped like a heart.

To all of these sights, Ysayle Dangoulain opened her eyes.


End file.
